Page 1 of Emylia

ChapterOne

“Emylia.” My name was a distant whisper, reaching me like an echo. I barely recognized it. Fire danced through my veins—slow, cruel—its heat no comfort. It was molten, liquid agony, licking through my body in all its devastating glory.

Stealing my breath.

Wringing the love out of my hope.

“Emylia.”

I forced my eyes open—my heart instantly crumbling at the sight of my father.

This wasn’t him.

This was a shadow. A husk. An empty shell.

In that moment, something inside me tore–slow, silent, irrevocable. Like the world had tilted… and would never be okay again.

The man I loved was gone—stolen by the disease that had been leeching the life from him piece by piece, like the cold, merciless bloodsucker of a disease it was.

It hadn’t just taken his strength. It had stolen everything.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I desperately tried to conjure his face—the one I knew. The one I had loved my entire life. But it was already gone. Lost. Replaced by the gaunt, lifeless figure before me.

His wild red mane had metamorphosed into a ghostly salt and pepper grey, dull and lifeless. Cheeks that had once been so full and splashed with vibrant pinks and reds were now sunken and tinted in ghoulish hues. A body that had once felt invincible, embodied with brute, unapologetic strength, now resembled little more than skin and bone. It looked like he could’ve been undone–turned to ash–by nothing more than a broken wind.

But his voice—even now, even like this—it still carried the weight of a king.

His fingers brushed mine. Barely a squeeze. But it anchored me. Kept me tethered. Brown eyes burned into mine—hot and bright, like the sun on desert stone. My knees buckled, collapsing to the wooden floor beside the bed with a dull, echoing thud. I barely registered the impact.

Not through the grief.

Not through the bone-deep, soul-splintering ache that had numbed everything else. Pain didn’t touch me anymore.

It wouldn’t dare.

My hands trembled as they found his—desperate, shaking, like clinging to the last ember of a dying fire. It felt like the moment itself had drained the strength from me, leaving only the raw tremor of unspoken words.

“You’ve made me so incredibly proud,” he said, voice thick. “It’s my greatest regret… that I won’t get to watch you grow into the extraordinary woman I know you’ll become.” He paused. A sharp breath. Strained.

“No force in this world can stand against you–not when your rage is woven into your very being, etched like runes into the marrow of your bones by the Gods themselves.” His hand trembled as it squeezed mine–a flicker of strength, fading but deliberate. Like he needed me to feel it. To believe it. “That fire burning at your core is wild… and sacred. You are fearless. Untamed. A storm the world should fear… and a flame the Gods themselves would worship.”

I lost the will to breathe. To speak. Because his words didn’t break me–they hollowed me. Stole the air from my lungs and left me crumbling, silent, undone.

“Neither your mother nor I ever believed you were meant for mediocre.” he whispered. “We’ve always known…you were destined for more. From the moment we caught you trying to climb the tallest tree in Aelinthia Forrest–Gods, you were barely three years old…” A rough chuckle escaped him.

Fragile. Broken. Stitched from fading memory.

“You were born to disrupt, to rise, tomatter.” Another breath that barely filled his lungs shuttered through him. “Whatever path you choose—” He faltered, but only slightly. “Whether it’s what the world expects… or what it fears… you’ll always have our love. Our support.”

“Even if I break the law?” I rasped, a tear-drenched smile barely tugging at the corner of my lips.

We both knew I had a special talent for breaking Ophelia’s laws.

Well—one in particular.

It was forbidden for a woman to wield a weapon. The punishment: branding and banishment.

But my parents never stopped me. Not because they weren’t afraid of the consequences—but because they knew me, to my very core. Knew I could never be contained by the shape the world tried to force me into. And they would rather see me burn bright and risk everything than disappear into the shadows to survive.

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